the big it was harder back then reason is if your raid was stuck on a boss there wasn't really many other ways to gear up besides kill the boss or farm the previous bosses till you got over he curve, Vael the guild breaker was a good example of this, at bwl release zg20 wasn't even out. now you have flex, lfr, timeless, ect to boost your ilvl up.

that being said, bosses are more complicated then "back then" but not by much.

Who has said raiding is easy now? Apart from LFR (which isn't even raiding) and Flex, which is intended to be easy, I've seen no complaints about raiding being easy, or easier than it used to be. If anything, I see people noting all the time that raids are much more complicated now than they used to be.

Who has said raiding is easy now? Apart from LFR (which isn't even raiding) and Flex, which is intended to be easy, I've seen no complaints about raiding being easy, or easier than it used to be. If anything, I see people noting all the time that raids are much more complicated now than they used to be.

I'm just unsure where this is coming from...

People have been mad that other people can see the content that used to be strictly for the most elite since Wrath. So, by that respect, "WoW is too easy/casual now". I saw 2 threads just last week, complaining that the content's too easy and they completed it too fast.

Who has said raiding is easy now? Apart from LFR (which isn't even raiding) and Flex, which is intended to be easy, I've seen no complaints about raiding being easy, or easier than it used to be. If anything, I see people noting all the time that raids are much more complicated now than they used to be.

I'm just unsure where this is coming from...

An extremely vocal minority of players who self-confess to not actually having played for several years, who still have no evidence at all but loads of ile towards the current state of the game.

People have been mad that other people can see the content that used to be strictly for the most elite since Wrath. So, by that respect, "WoW is too easy/casual now". I saw 2 threads just last week, complaining that the content's too easy and they completed it too fast.

Those people ran LFR once.

Oh, I thought we were talking about raiding, not LFR...

People that complain that LFR is too easy and claim it as raiding have probably never stepped foot in a HM raid or even cleared a Normal raid. There's no legitimacy in their claims. They're just uneducated attempts to feign elitism, not realizing that they just look foolish.

A lot of people consider boss mechanics when talking about difficulty, this is a big mistake. Raid mechanics are only a part of the difficulty. Arguments like "blah this is not hard, it just takes time and it's boring" are stupid. Mechanics are part of the difficulty. Willingness to tackle and overcome a tedious task is part of the difficulty. Commitment is a part of the difficulty.

Boss mechanics are harder nowadays than in the past. However everything else has been made trivial (the only exception about that being if you play in a world class guild and have to play, gear and farm for multiple characters, it may be more hardcore than in the past). A great deal of difficulty has been removed from the game, and raiding mechanics being a bit more evolved does not compensate for it in my opinion.

Originally Posted by ShimmerSwirl

What made old wow raiding harder was that there was a lot more personal responsiblity in raids. Almost every single fight had mechanics that penalized the whole raid if you screwed up, not just you. Now its much, much easier to hide bad players and have the responsibility on just a handful of good players.

OT No, raiding is not easier, and is intact much much harder. Had a fight like Blackfuse existed in vanilla, nobody would have downed it.

However, it has become ridiculously easy to kill the last raid boss, thank you LFR, and as a result people coming ino te game see less of a reason to go further since well they already downed Garrosh...

Raiding itself is harder, but clearing te content at all is a pitiful joke with LFr

This is my reason for saying 'raiding has got easier'. I would say that the mechanics are a lot harder and I would even say there is far more individual responsibility (especially in 10 mans). But I hate being put in the position where I have to choose whether to down the final boss on lfr, after probably 10 wipes because no one has read the tactics (not a rant about lfr), or wait for my guild to progress there.

It must suck for those who have downed Garrosh on heroic or even normal mode, knowing that some scrub has gotten the same gear as you (with a slightly different colour glow) from just wiping their way through lfr - Talking aesthetically obviously. I remember when I first started raiding in TBC and getting some of my first tier pieces and thinking I'm awesome - Only to see someone roll by wearing the latest tier and thinking "One day that will be me!"

I understand Blizzards POV though - why waste money creating content that only 0.1% of the player base will see. But for me (as a semi casual raider/wannabe hardcore) I would much prefer to still be working on old content with the goal of completing the content. Then trying to do it on a harder difficulty.

People that complain that LFR is too easy and claim it as raiding have probably never stepped foot in a HM raid or even cleared a Normal raid. There's no legitimacy in their claims. They're just uneducated attempts to feign elitism, not realizing that they just look foolish.

Not really worth a thread, but hey, whatever works I guess

I mean, this is what I'm assuming from this thread at least. Bosses like heroic Ragnaros were more challenging to me than anything I did in Vanilla or BC, and I raided my ass off in those days because I was a little no-lifer. Anyone that says otherwise is lost in nostalgia-land or pretending to be a WoW-hipster. I personally think heroic modes were a great addition to the game and clearing LFR or even normal mode isn't a valid excuse to call raiding "too easy now", when said person is intentionally avoiding the more challenging content.

If you say Vanilla raids were harder, you probably didnt played vanilla.

The only reason they were "hard" was because since you had to bring 40 people, you were going to carry bads eventually, there is no way you could find 40 good players that had a schedule dedicated only to wow.

Also, most specs had a 1 or 2 buttons rotation, thats it.

why do people keep saying that? i don't know what crap guild you were in but in mine, if you didn't perform you got gkicked.

Raiding isn't difficult today. There is a lot more stuff going on during a boss fight, yes, but once you see through all that visual noise, it's still just don't-stand-in-fire tactics with way more clutter. Additional mechanics like iron prison on shamans, eating bombs on juggernaut and stuff like that don't really push the bosses way ahead of what we had in bc or wotlk. So it's still just don't-stand-in-shit + x.

Also, you can't really blame Blizzard for classic raids, as they were based a lot on classic RPGs, which by nature required a lot of preperation. Now we have a more action-based game. Choose whatever you like more, but I don't think preparing for raids or specific bosses was a bad thing from an RPG perspective. This also made gearing a lot more interesting as you had more than one goal to achieve, because next to BiS gear, you also needed resistance gear.
Also remember, Blizzard got rid of this preperation stuff because people complained it consumes so much time to do all that stuff. And now people want actually stuff to do outside of raids. I know, those will most likely be different persons who complain here, but still this shows there is no perfect path for Blizzard to take. And if there is, the chances are it's not the current path.

I have been playing since vanilla closed beta. I must agree with the OP about the preparation part. And that is what brought fun and challenge to the game. About easy encounters - not so sure. Razorgore fight still brings some painful memories =) TBC was hardcore and epic at the same time. Lich king was ok but at that point most player base got older and split into two groups: hardcore raiders required challenge and hm.. hardcore, and forums whiners getting owned by the game in both pvp and pve. Since then, closely to the end of LK the nerfbat brought down the game to the casual level we all know. I dont do raids anymore, only lfg. And, being a 32 years old person I am still having fun in the game. I guess its just the way things work...

One of the hardest things in Vanilla was managing a group of 40 people and actually gearing them up through each raid tier in order to advance to the next, without people quitting for other raidgroups and forcing you to take a few steps back again. I've seen raids who could take down Nefarian forced to go back to struggling on bosses in Molten Core simply because too many people stopped showing up or jumped to a different raidgroup.

So yeah, aside from the actual bosses everything else about raiding was so much harder back then. And I honestly don't agree that bosses were easy in Vanilla either, yeah perhaps Molten Core. But I think Chromaggus, Nefarian, Twin Emperors, C'thun and Four Horsemen were quite difficult for their time, to name a few.

What people are also forgetting about Vanilla is that you had a LOT less situational abilities, so the game was much less forgiving if you made a mistake or if you didn't maximize efficiency. A few healers throwing their heals at the same time and overhealing would result in a short period of time where the tank got 0 heals, this often meant a wipe. Now all classes have a lot of situational abilities in order to overcome these problems, more instant heals, more shields, more things like Cloak of Shadows and whatnot. These abilities make raiding now easier than Vanilla.

I mean, this is what I'm assuming from this thread at least. Bosses like heroic Ragnaros were more challenging to me than anything I did in Vanilla or BC, and I raided my ass off in those days because I was a little no-lifer. Anyone that says otherwise is lost in nostalgia-land or pretending to be a WoW-hipster. I personally think heroic modes were a great addition to the game and clearing LFR or even normal mode isn't a valid excuse to call raiding "too easy now", when said person is intentionally avoiding the more challenging content.

Yeah, anyone not getting into HM's and calling raiding "too easy" is talking out of their ass.

Im here writing this out of sickness, my eyes are bleeding thanks to the quantity of ppl saying "raiding is easy" "the game is easy" "wow was better in vanilla".

Lets start saying that I've been playing WoW for several hours everyday since 2004. I experienced every content in the game to the fullest, every difficulty, size, type, EVERYTHING.

I personally am the kind of player that does everything in the game, even the stuff that nobody cares about like finishing the game to 100%, even completing the last quest.

----

The important part of this topic:

People have been saying raiding is easier lately, its not and I will explain why its not and why it feels easier.

Many years ago players werent experienced enough, the game was new, everything was a little bit new for all of us except for the small bunch of players that came from another MMO, and eventhough it was new for them also.

If you take a dedicated look into every single boss fight from Vanilla to WOTLK (instead of going to forums to say exactly the same everybody else says) you will find out the following:

1) Bosses have less quantity of mechanics.
2) The mechanics are pretty basic, based on a game that was way more basic (we are talking about many years ago).
3) Performing such mechanics didnt require as much coordination, in general.

What really was "harder" "annoying" and such was the PREPARATION TO RAID, Yes, preparation. Why? Well simple enough:

1) In vanilla many raids required resistance gear that came from long farming and crafting.
2) No gold inflation with prices for said resistance gear been high.
3) Attunements, many raids required a quest chain for you to be able to JOIN that raid.
4) Crafting geared "required" by many guilds.
5) Consumables required some farming time.
6) Most of guilds wouldnt take you without blue set gear (back in Vanilla and also happened in BC a bit too)
7) To farm such gear you needed a lot of time and doing dungeons without a "queue" button, it ment that you had to fly to the dungeon after getting a group that might have had a person leaving in the middle of the run which meant you needed to find someone else, fly to a city, spam trade chat, etc.

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I hope you all see what I am talking about even when my english is pretty bad, raiding itself WAS NOT harder, the preparation was harder.

And for the PVP side of the game we can say that Arenas brought the real "skill based" pvp gaming eventhought some comps were/are better or OP. PvP requires skill maybe.

In my opinion more skill than PvE, PvE is about awareness, knowing your class and "fight studying" for progression plus improvising on specific situations.

Thanks for reading.

Sorry for bad english.

however, in answer to wall of text, if you boil it down to it's root components there is NOTHING new that blizzard will ever be able to throw at you. the worst they can do is throw so many simple mechanics at you at one time that it seems impossible, and maybe some time is.

Raid mechanics:

Damaging objects or abilities that should be avoided to decrease player manageable damage to the raid
Unavoidable damage in some form to either tank or raid that must be healed.
Do x amount of damage to hostiles during the encounter in y amount of time.
Things that must be crowd controlled, kited, or dealt with in some manner other than damaging them.
Positioning.

Anything else is just a combination of the above.

Where players start to feel overwhelmed is when they get hit by (must position the boss here and not dps him so he doesn't heal while not standing in the stuff right where the boss should be while climbing up on a platform and popping a cooldown for the known damage burst coming to the tanks while healing avoidable damage that the raid is running through during a non avoidable raid wide aoe burst), and forget that it is just a string of simple raid mechanics that they are in some way in control of managing the outcome following that chain of events by handling them AS the single individual events that they are.

Players have many more resources now as well. Much better addons, log sites, etc. Lei Shen may be technically more challenging than a lot of older fights, but considering each fight at its time, it being more difficult is not necessarily true.

Indeed. And the whole surrounding stuff is more streamlined. Porting to Instance for example. Kargath was a pain...as was getting 8 ppl to travel to then end of Ashzara to get the essences.

Obviously some aspects are "easier" because we have 4 difficulties, The HM rankings tend to suggest raiding is not easier

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

however, in answer to wall of text, if you boil it down to it's root components there is NOTHING new that blizzard will ever be able to throw at you. the worst they can do is throw so many simple mechanics at you at one time that it seems impossible, and maybe some time is.

Raid mechanics:

Damaging objects or abilities that should be avoided to decrease player manageable damage to the raid
Unavoidable damage in some form to either tank or raid that must be healed.
Do x amount of damage to hostiles during the encounter in y amount of time.
Things that must be crowd controlled, kited, or dealt with in some manner other than damaging them.
Positioning.

Anything else is just a combination of the above.

Where players start to feel overwhelmed is when they get hit by (must position the boss here and not dps him so he doesn't heal while not standing in the stuff right where the boss should be while climbing up on a platform and popping a cooldown for the known damage burst coming to the tanks while healing avoidable damage that the raid is running through during a non avoidable raid wide aoe burst), and forget that it is just a string of simple raid mechanics that they are in some way in control of managing the outcome following that chain of events by handling them AS the single individual events that they are.

Multitasking basically. Which tends to make things more complex with the more things you have to juggle at any one time. I'd define that as a form of difficulty imo.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Hardstyler01

What people are also forgetting about Vanilla is that you had a LOT less situational abilities, so the game was much less forgiving if you made a mistake or if you didn't maximize efficiency. A few healers throwing their heals at the same time and overhealing would result in a short period of time where the tank got 0 heals, this often meant a wipe. Now all classes have a lot of situational abilities in order to overcome these problems, more instant heals, more shields, more things like Cloak of Shadows and whatnot. These abilities make raiding now easier than Vanilla.

I concur this point; before you pointed it out, I was simply going to put it myself as: Player characters are more powerful these days than they were back in the day. Each class/spec has WAY more utility/flexibility than it used to. This is certainly a factor that can contribute to making content potentially less challenging (which it inevitably does).

-----------------

My conclusion is that the game is different. Good or bad? Up to the player. I like WoW's current state, but also liked it in the past just as much, for different reasons. I changed, the game changed - I'm one of the lucky people who has gotten mostly what they wanted out of the game when it was available at most points in time. Other people haven't been so lucky. WoW may not be their game any longer. That is all.

Who has said raiding is easy now? Apart from LFR (which isn't even raiding) and Flex, which is intended to be easy, I've seen no complaints about raiding being easy, or easier than it used to be. If anything, I see people noting all the time that raids are much more complicated now than they used to be.

I'm just unsure where this is coming from...

No one. The number is so small, people wise who think this. Probably 0.00001% of the subs. lol.